Thursday, March 26, 2009
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
"New York City Serenade": Frank Whaley Blog
Frank Whaley is most recognized from his starring role with Kevin Spacey in the independent cult favorite Swimming With Sharks and films like Pulp Fiction and Vacancy, as well as television shows including The Dead Zone, CSI, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and House M.D. But this time, Frank is behind the camera - as director and writer of the independent film, New York City Serenade starring Freddie Prinze Jr, Chris Klein and Jamie-Lynn Sigler, which recently opened theatrically in New York. And who better to tell us about the film than Frank himself - so check out his blog below written just for Amazon to celebrate the film, which is now available on DVD. - Lisanne
I began writing the screenplay for NEW YORK CITY SERENADE one early November morning in 1994. The night before, my best friend at the time and I were sitting in a pre-Starbucks coffee shop on the west side of Manhattan trying to figure out what to do with our Saturday night. We bumped into an acquaintance who was on his way to a party up at Columbia University where his lady friend was a student. We decided to tag along, despite his sheepish warning “It might be by invitation only.” We assured him it would be fine. Like most things in those days it was on a lark, an impulse conducted with little or no thought. This particular Saturday evening, this crashed party, and it’s aftermath, became the basis for the script.
We took the subway uptown and found the party. It was in a beautiful old townhouse which was now home to a Columbia fraternity. My friend immediately engaged himself in a close conversation with an exotic looking blonde art student. Left to my own devices, I began making mindless conversation with various coeds. One of these conversations turned into a spirited game of truth or dare between myself and a couple of philosophy majors in an upstairs study and ended when one of the young lady’s boyfriend and a few of his frat brothers burst in. I accepted their invitation to fight but only one at a time before scurrying out of the room like a squirrel. Hearing the commotion my friend removed himself from the back room where he and the art student had moved their conversation and the two of us hauled ass out of there, escaping a small angry mob of drunk frat boys.
The next night I was packing up my drums in the dive bar where my band had played a set earlier in the evening, (For many years I played the drums in a NYC band called the Niagaras). The place was called Mondo Cane, a fire trap situated above an Italian restaurant in the West Village with space to occupy thirty people but whose owner frequently allowed in five times that many for a ten dollar cover charge. My friend came in and sunk into a corner table looking forlorn. Evidently the art student was a friend of a co-worker of his girlfriend. Word had traveled and his girlfriend found out he had been getting busy with her at the party the night before. She broke up with him at dinner earlier in the evening but not before throwing a full glass of ginger ale in his face.
The good news was she was no longer his girlfriend and therefore no longer going to the film festival in Houston, Texas where a short film he had made was going to be playing. It took a little bit of convincing but I was the recipient of the extra plane ticket and moreover a free trip to Houston.
This relatively pointless series of events became the script and eventually the movie. What I set out to do was capture an otherwise forgotten moment. I was in my mid thirties and at a real turning point in my life, which had become a nightly booze fueled whirlpool of adolescence and I was becoming way to old and tired for the whole thing. I think writing the script helped me come to terms with a lot of things at that time.
I also wanted to write a story about New York, the New York that I experienced in my younger days.
Mostly I wanted to tell a story about friendship and the strange way people have of moving in and out of each other’s lives like ghosts. All the people that I wrote about and characterized in the movie are no longer a part of my life, at least not in any significant way. It’s as though I lived another life, remote from me now and completely forgotten about. Somewhere tucked away in the nooks and crannies of memory there are vague pictures.
In the movie Owen and Ray are like brothers, of the same mind, two sides of the same coin. Inseparable. In the end they have no choice but go their separate ways.
After I wrote the first draft I put the script away for a long time. I wrote and directed my second film THE JIMMY SHOW, got married and started a family. In 2001 I came back to it, I did a couple of revised drafts, changed the title from THE WINTER SPRING RISE AND FALL OF RAY and set out to try and get it financed. I sent it to my agent and she said “No one wants to see a movie about these two awful people.”
A little over four years later I somehow managed to raise the money to make it. In the summer of 2006 Freddie Prinze Jr., Chris Klein, Jamie Lynn Sigler, Heather Bucha and Wallace Shawn among others along with my faithful producer Rachel Peters and a very good and hard working crew began twenty-two and a half blistering, drama filled and very difficult days and nights filming NEW YORK CITY SERENADE in and around the city of Manhattan.
Nearly three years later the film has finally found a theatrical release, an extremely limited release (one theater) , but a release none the less. More importantly it will find an extremely beautiful DVD release courtesy of ANCHOR BAY ENTERTAINMENT.
It’s been quite a journey from that early November morning in 1994. I’m glad I was able to tell this story. I hope people enjoy the movie. - Frank Whaley
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
All Hail "Kings" (and Here's Why)
TV's next great drama is here. It's called Kings, and for some of you, all I will need to say is that it stars Ian McShane of Deadwood fame. He's not as profane in this show, and he's not the villain (though it's not quite right to call him a good guy). Either way, he commands the screen. His kingdom is called Gilboa, not that it matters, really, as it's essentially America with a monarchist veneer. And Gilboa is a country at war. There are battle scenes, but this show is really about a different kind of warfare. We've seen it before, in shows like Gossip Girl or (to get old school on you), Dynasty. It's beautiful people with money and power and a thirst for more, more, more. Adding the royalty gives it a twist in Kings, as does the source material, aka Bible stories. Not for nothing does our soldier hero (David) "slay" a tank called a Goliath. "This court needs a new face to look up to," says the king. "We can use him." But will the earnest soldier/hero be so easily played?
Yes, the show is not necessarily surprising (The cute hero and the king's daughter together? Who'da thunk it? And the king faces treachery from within his own family? Really?). Plus, there's a scene involving butterflies that really beats subtext into text. That said, though, the storylines are compelling and the cast, well, let's just say McShane isn't the only memorable one. Our soldier/hero is played by Chris Egan, an Aussie with a Heath Ledger edge, and his princess is played by the Katie Holmesian Allison Miller. The double-length first episode is available free for a limited time at Amazon Video On Demand, where you can watch it on your PC, Mac or TV. Enjoy! -- Stephanie Reid-Simons, Amazon Video On Demand
Best & Worst Irish Accents in Movies
I am not remotely Irish, so I am not the best authority on what makes a good brogue. I have a better idea on the bad ones, however, but I'll let you judge for yourself. So in honor of St. Patrick's Day, here's a shortlist of non-Irish actors doing brogues:
1. Brad Pitt in The Devil's Own (1997)
Brad Pitt moves into Harrison Ford's home, he brings the IRA with him and says things like "Ah need dat mohn-ee, Tohm."
2. Meryl Streep in Dancing at Lughnasa (1998)
As one of five women living together in rural Ireland in the 1930s, Meryl takes on the brogue and... oh, who are we kidding. This is Meryl Streep we're talking about.
3. Orson Welles in The Lady From Shanghai
Welles (American), plays a drifing Irish sailor whose fascination with Rita Hayworth leads him into a scheme on a pleasure cruise. Welles' accent was much maligned.
4. Cate Blanchett in Veronica Guerin
Playing the Irish journalist who was gunned down as she exposed drug lords and crime lords, the Australian Blanchett was commended not just for her performance but her credible Dublin accent.
5. Leonardo DiCaprio, Henry Thomas, and Cameron Diaz in Gangs of New York
I don't think I read much criticism of this trio's accents when the film came out, maybe because their characters have grown up mostly in the States. Still, I'm not sure Diaz, with her red ringlets and perpetual pout, really belongs in a period movie. She always looks like she's on a modeling shoot playing dress-up.
6. Chris O'Donnell, Circle of Friends
I don't know if I'm biased because at the time of the film's release, Chris O'Donnell was the bee's knees. But I found the accent (plus all the slang, with the "altogether" and "just about") enhanced rather than stumble his charm. As for Minnie Driver, making her film debut, I thought she actually was Irish.
7. Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman in Far and Away
It's just like Australia, except instead of Hugh Jackman it's Nic's ex-husband Tom Cruise, and instead of World War II bombings you have stampeding horses. And a kickin' Enya song. With Kidman's fiery red hair she looks the part of an Irish lass, but someone must have passed Cruise a note that read: "Look, Sean Connery made a career without doing any accent but his own," because he hasn't done one since. Even a Transylvania one in that Interview with a Vampire movie.
Other notable (or notably bad) Irish accents, for which i couldn't find a video example:
Tommy Lee Jones in Blown Away
Julia Roberts in Michael Collins
Any others come to mind? --Ellen
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Charlie Kaufman is Not Scary
A few months ago, Robert Arambel and I got the chance to sit down with Charlie Kaufman while he was in town promoting Synecdoche, New York, a complex and beautifully epic story that kind of makes you question everything you've ever concluded about your life and your place in the world. It's a hoot. If you've seen any of Kaufman's other films (as writer), including Being John Malkovich or Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, you know that he rarely takes the most direct route to reach his conclusion and Synecdoche, New York, in all it's surrealistic jumbled glory, is no exception.
Robert and I attended an advance screening the night before our interview. Kaufman came in after the film and did Q & A with the audience. This experience, it must be said, left us both a little nervous, as he came off as both incredibly brilliant and just a little grumpy. The next morning however, the director was still incredibly brilliant, but also very gracious and thoughtful and we left marveling at his strength of vision and astonishing comittment to show the world just a little piece of it. Check out our interview below. ---Kira
"Twilight's" Deleted Scenes: The OTHER Bedroom Kiss & More
Egads. I just watched one of the deleted scenes from Twilight's upcoming DVD (also on Blu-ray), and while this is certainly passionate, many are saying Catherine Hardwicke was right to only stick to one kiss in the whole movie. Keeping this in would have taken away the buildup to the big smooch later. Do you agree, or is it the more kissing, the better? -- Ellen
P.S. You can watch the other two deleted scenes from Access Hollywood: The first is Edward and Bella talking in the woods; the second is Edward biting Bella's finger.
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